


Scenes From the Life of Neal Adams

by sidana



Category: Anita Blake: Vampire Hunter - Laurell K. Hamilton
Genre: Light BDSM, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-31
Updated: 2018-10-31
Packaged: 2019-08-11 14:53:40
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 7,893
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16477658
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sidana/pseuds/sidana
Summary: Narcissus' teenage years weren't quite what some people would have expected





	1. Chapter 1

Prom Night

Disclaimer: not my characters, not my universe. I promise to put everyone back where I found them when I'm done playing with them.

Author's Note: So blame this one on a challenge drabble. The topic was changes, and I ended up on a Narcissus roll, which got me thinking about how he had to come from somewhere, and what he might have been like before he showed up in St. Louis with the Rocky Horror wardrobe choices and Greek name.

So back in the days before Narcissus, there was this kid named Neal Adams who lived in a small town in Downstate Illonois.....

*****

"So you could always ask Neal to prom."  
"Why would I do that?"  
"I dunno. Be fun to see if he decided to pretend to be a guy or a girl for the night. Him in teal satin would probably be pure comedy gold."  
"And then I go down in the history of this town as the girl who brought the giant freak to the biggest dance of my life. No thanks."

*****

He looked over himself in the mirror, and decided that it was time to stop messing around and start actually doing something. After all, wasn't the point of the evening going to be seeing if there was a group of people closer to home that could somehow accept him as he was? So he was going out looking like he looked like he usually did- jeans, and a button down shirt worn unbuttoned over a dark tee. Maybe the jeans and tee were a bit more form-fitting than what he usually wore to school, but it wasn't like it was like the pictures he'd seen of San Francisco.

He ran the comb through his hair one more time, and headed out the bathroom, ending up in the living room with his father.

"Hey Dad. Mind if I take the car and just get out of here for a while tonight? Probably just to head to the mall in Paducah or Cape or something. I just don't feel like staying in, and I don't want to be somewhere in town either." Because anywhere he went closer to home and he'd run into people from school all dressed up and excited about the damn dance. It wasn't so much that he wanted to go, but that it was one more thing in life that the normal people got to do and he didn't.

"Only if you promise to be careful and to take care of yourself. I know that tonight's not easy for you just like Homecoming isn't either. But remember that the world's a far bigger place than here, and that if you want, a year from now, we'll be packing you up for a move."

"Thanks, Dad," he said, reaching down to briefly hug the man on the couch before he grabbed the car keys and headed out the door.

He had to admit that he was lucky to have his parents, he thought as he began to drive through the flat farms and game land that surrounded town. They'd never really understand him. It was just impossible for them to do so. But they loved him and wanted to figure out some way he could be happy in life. The plan for that had come about when he had had a near catastrophic meltdown in eighth grade. It was an agreement between them and him that if he could graduate from high school with a B average and not cut classes too much, that they'd help him move to a bigger city where he might not be such a freak.

It was because of them that he'd stayed in town as long as he had. Otherwise, he would have been hitching his way down I-57 long ago.

He cut down a roadway between farm fields, and gunned the engine on Dad's Olds. He had told something of a half truth. The plan for the night was to head into Cape, but not to the mall. Instead, it was time to finally try out the allegedly good fake i.d. that had been sitting in his underwear drawer since just before Christmas. He hadn't really had a plan when he'd gotten it, but it wasn't a bad idea to have a card that said he was nineteen instead of seventeen just in case he wanted to use it for something.

It had taken prom night to give him the guts to get out and try to use it for something. Maybe by going to Cape he could find something to keep his last year of high school somewhat bearable when it seemed like everything was starting to get worse again.

As he came around the last curve before the river, he banished away other thoughts in order to concentrate on his driving. He had been going to Cape Girardeau for therapy as long as he could remember, and as long as he could remember, he had hated the damn bridge from Illinois. It was too high over the Mississippi, far too narrow, and always made him feel like he was walking across a tightrope when he used it, even when he was only a passenger and not a driver. His therapist had suggested once that his issues with the bridge had something to do with how when he hit the Missouri side, it was almost always for his sometimes uncomfortable appointments there. But it really was just too narrow, too high bridges in general. The ones in Cairo got him just as bad, and he didn't have any sort of emotional issues involving Cairo.

After what seemed like far too long, and far too high, he got off the damn bridge, letting go of a breath he hadn't realized he had been holding. Then he turned north, cutting through a series of neighborhoods until he found himself in a smallish commercial area midway between downtown and SEMO. He had picked Cape for this trip because there would be more college kids there than there would have been in Paducah, and at least in one way, that would help him blend in a little more.

He parked the car, and gave a glance toward his planned ultimate destination, an unobtrusive bar that didn't even have its name up on a sign. For all that Cape was a college town, and a more liberal place than the surrounding countryside, it still probably wasn't a good idea to flaunt that the place was called Adam and Steve's, and that it was the only gay bar between Memphis and St. Louis.

He pocketed the keys, walking not to the bar but instead to the Subway across the road from it. He'd been so eager to get out of the house and out of town that he'd skipped dinner there, and now his stomach was starting to complain about that omission. Given where it was, he really shouldn't have been surprised that the sandwich shop turned out to be something of a meat market. As he ate his own sub at a table in the corner, he noticed that most of the other men eating in there were sitting far closer together than what his male high school classmates would ever tolerate.

A blonde man wearing a tight SIU t-shirt caught Neal looking at his table, and gave Neal a grin and a slow wink. Reflexively, he found himself smiling back for a few seconds before he broke eye contact. Someone was flirting with him. And unlike at school, it just might be more than someone playing a joke on him.

He knew that he didn't look bad from a distance. He had lifted weights and gotten himself in shape from a pretty young age. He'd had to. The only way to stop the school bullies from picking on him had not only been to learn how to fight back when they attacked, but to make himself into something scary enough that they wouldn't even think of starting something physical with him. If he hadn't had tits, Mister Varsity Football Coach would have been all over him to join the team. It usually took people getting up close to see everything that was weird about him.

Still, the booth the other men were in wasn't too far away. It was always a bad idea to hope for the best, but a part of him wanted to believe that the blonde had seen him as he really was and liked what he saw. And if the blonde didn't then why did he offer Neal one more smile just before his table cleared out and headed across the street?

Blushing, Neal finished up his ham sandwich, and then, buoyed by the blonde's attention, dumped his trash and began his own walk toward the bar. He let himself have one last moment of nervousness. For all that the bar was in theory supposed to be a safe place for someone like him, he was still a freak. It was easy to put an actual percentage on the number of people who considered themselves to be gay or transgendered or intersexed. He could damn quote the statistics chapter and verse at this point. It had come up in therapy a lot since he had hit puberty. But he was a true hermaphrodite, and there were maybe a dozen people like him in the world total.

But he couldn't jut turn around and drive back home tonight either, not on the night when everyone else his age he knew was getting to have the biggest party of their lives. Before he could over think it anymore, he took advantage of a gap in traffic, cutting across the street and walking into the bar.

He hadn't been quite sure what to expect, but was both surprised and a little relieved at how ordinary it was inside. The front of the place was pretty much like any other bar he'd seen with its mix of barstools, tables, and booths. The only real difference was the total lack of the usual Cardinals, Cubs, Sox, and Illini crap on the walls. Behind the bar area was a dance floor. It was fenced off by what looked like glass or plexiglass running from floor to ceiling, the purpose seeming to be to keep the music from being loud enough in the bar area to kill conversation. The people in there were a mix of men and women dressed nicely enough for a night on town. He should have expected that, given where they were, no one would come in looking too San Francisco.

"Need anything?" the bartender asked, interrupting Neal's examination.

"Just a coke, please."

"Gotta ask for i.d. from everyone. Cops would love an excuse to shut us down," the bartender said as he returned with Neal's coke. You had to be eighteen to even go into a bar on the Missouri side of the river even if you weren't going to drink.

Neal reached in his pocket, and grabbed the driver's license that wasn't real from his wallet, along with enough money to pay for his coke. The bartender took the license, his eyes flicking between the card and Neal's face before returning it to him.

"Welcome to Adam and Steve's, young Neal. Glad you could make it."

"It's good to be here," Neal said, letting go of the breath he had been holding again. The fake was good, but the bartender seemed to be the type who could recognize it for what it was. But at the same time, maybe he'd recognized just how much Neal needed to be here.

He took the first few sips of the coke carefully, enjoying the sweetness. Turned out there really hadn't been a reason to pay extra to get a license that said he was twenty-one. He didn't want to get drunk on a night like this, didn't want to have the beer get him to do something stupid that would get him kicked out of a place where he wanted to be. That, and the idea of going back across the damn bridge with even one beer in him freaked him out more than a little.

"I know it's a cliche and all, but are you new in town?" Suddenly blonde SIU guy stood in front of him.

"I've spent a good chunk of my life in Cape G. for one reason or another, just never really in this neighborhood or in here. I'm Neal," he added on the end, trying to not let manners slide by the wayside.

"Tony," the blonde introduced himself.

"And you go to SIU?" he said, sounding lame even to his own ears. Small talk was not his strong point.

"Swim team scholarship there," Tony said, giving a little shrug of his shoulders that left Neal appreciating the other man's pecs. "My friends and me just end up here a lot because Carbondale's so damn dull."

"I can understand the feeling. Where I live, fucking Carbondale counts as the big city."

"Even here, all I can say is that I'm heading to Chicago after graduation."

"Chicago's on my getting the hell out of here list too."

"To escaping small town life," Tony said, clicking his beer mug to Neal's glass in a mock toast.

"Here, here."

"C'mon over and meet the rest of the crowd," Tony said, nudging him toward a booth where more of Tony's friends sat.

"Hey, I'm Crowd, guy next to me is Rest," a stocky dark-haired man introduced himself.

"So you're making me be Of again. Why am I always Of?"

"Because it pisses you off, Joe, and you look hot when you've got that vaguely annoyed thing going on," Tony said. The man identified as Joe replied by tossing a pretzel at Tony, who caught it, ate it, and then stuck his tongue out at his friend.

"Before this conversation goes too much further, can I remind you that I only came tonight because my brain has been fried by final exams, and I was promised dancing. Tony seems to be actually wanting to talk to the new guy there, and with how he likes to talk, I know that's going to interfere with the dancing if we don't cut him off at the pass now," Rest grumbled over his beer.

"If you're going to get prissy about it, Bill, and if Neal here doesn't mind."

"No, dancing's fine." It wasn't his favorite thing to do, but it would help keep Tony's attention on him, and he definitely wanted the built like a Greek god Tony to keep paying attention.

So he found himself herded behind the glass and onto the dance floor. The music was pure disco. Anyone back at school would have mocked it horribly for being more than twenty years out of date. But on the bright side, it had a decent beat so all you really had to do was to move to that beat, and you wouldn't look too much like an idiot.

The first brush came against his arm before the Donna Summer got anywhere near the chorus. Neal looked over to see Tony looking back at him to see if it was okay. He responded by brushing his hand along Tony's forearm. Then Tony's hand came to rest on his shoulder. Right over the bra strap that Neal knew Tony had to be definitely feeling.

Outside of his family, no one ever touched Neal voluntarily. It had always been that way, like they were afraid that they could somehow catch what had gone horribly wrong with him. But Tony didn't pull away. Instead, his palm stayed snug against Neal's shoulder, his fingers tapping along the blade to the beat of the music. Neal found himself moving closer and closer to Tony, then splaying his own arm across Tony's back. Unlike the others, Tony didn't pull away from him.

Then as the music continued, they moved through others on the dance floor, sometimes bumping into others dancers on purpose. With every small touch, every brush, he became more and more convinced that he had come to the right place. Who needed prom when he just might have this instead? They danced until, dehydrated and out of breath, he finally had to go back into the bar area to recover.

He managed to locate his old coke glass just as Tony came back to the bar.

"Don't tell me we've managed to scare you off."

"Not scared off, but exhausted me. I thought I was in good shape, but you're all machines or something."

"It's my off season. I've got more energy when I'm not in the pool for five hours a day."

"And the football players think they're tough with their three hour practices," Neal said, trying to figure out something to say next. But before he could, Tony was touching him again. Lips connected with his own lips, then tongue sought out his tongue. He could feel how Tony wanted him, tits and dick and all, felt his own response to Tony's close presence grow.

"Lots of energy when I'm not in season. Don't suppose you're interested in going back to fucking Carbondale with me?"

He wanted to say yes, to see where else the night was going to take him. But he just couldn't quite do that yet. Tony only thought he knew what Neal looked like. Could he handle the full metal truth of what Neal was? He probably could. He hadn't flinched away from the tits or the bra. But what if Tony couldn't? What if he saw Neal naked and turned away from him? So far, the night in Cape had been pretty much perfect. He didn't, emotionally couldn't screw up that perfect night with even the chance of getting rejected. He'd put a part of himself on the surface tonight in a way that he never really had before. And that exposed part of him was new enough that it would be so very easy to painfully break it.

"Not tonight. I don't think I'm quite ready for that yet. But, um, next time?" he said, finishing by kissing Tony briefly on the lips again.

"I'm still interested. But you've got a time limit before the offer expires. I'm going to be here the next two Friday and Saturday nights, and then it's back to Des Moines for the summer. "

"Sounds good to me," he said.

Tony kissed him one more time before pulling away to go back to his dancing friends. As he did, Neal found himself enjoying the view of Tony's legs and ass. It wasn't going to happen tonight. It might not happen the next night. But as he watched the other man dance, he felt a warm confidence grow that it was going to happen before the other man went back to fucking Iowa.


	2. Chapter 2

Author's Note: Another short story from back when Narcissus was still known as Neal Adams.

********************

"Neal, your friend Tony's here," he heard his mom yell from the living room.

"I'll be right down," he returned.

Neal looked around his bedroom one more time, and inspected his duffle bag one more time. Satisfied that it contained everything he needed to bring for the weekend, he zipped it up and headed into the living room.

"Ready to hit the road?" Tony asked from where he stood next to the fireplace. The other man looked far better in faded jeans and an old SIU Athletic Department tee than he had any right to be. Neal let himself smile just a little bit, feeling lucky once more that Tony and his friends had welcomed him into their lives.

"All set," he said, lifting the duffle to indicate he was all packed.

"One lecture before you go," his mom said as she grabbed her purse from the shelf near the front door. She dug into the bag, pulling a few bills from it, and started to pass them to him. "You know I don't approve of underage drinking. I know that it probably still happens even though I don't like it. So I'm trying to be a realist, and saying that if you do drink, here's enough to cover cab fare from wherever you are in the city back to your hotel. I hope you don't use it for that, and instead find a good record store up in St. Louis and use the money to buy a couple of albums. I know you're always complaining about how the mall in Paducah doesn't have what you want to listen to."

"Thanks, Mom." he said, taking the money as he leaned in to give her a brief kiss on the cheek.

"I'm just hoping that it all goes well for you. You've never shown much interest in college before."

"Chalk it up to feeling more confident about myself these days," he said, the smile growing even bigger. "And I'll be careful."

"Don't worry, Mrs. Adams. I'll make sure Neal comes home with a couple of nice shiny albums that will make anyone over thirty cringe when they hear the lyrics," Tony promised as they walked out the front door and to Tony's waiting car.

"Sweet freedom," Neal murmured as he stashed his bag in the back seat and flopped into the passenger's side.

"That always goes so much easier that I think it's going to," Tony said as he started the engine and backed out the driveway.

"Why wouldn't it? Number one, they like you." It was just part of Tony's nature that people wanted to trust him. He was the All American boy who seemed to be heading toward bigger things. "And number two, they're glad I finally seem to be making good friends after so long when I was just kind of tolerated at best. Especially with the friends being people like you and the guys where the worst they feel like they have to worry about is me having too many beers."

"Not like you even really drink either."

"I figure it's easier for them to assume that's what's going on when I come up to campus than to let them know the real truth. It's like some big moment of irony. Every one else I go to school with, their parents are convinced they're off trying to screw someone of the opposite sex out beyond the football field bleachers. Me, it's like my parents don't even consider that I could be interested in sex because of how I am, and I'm probably getting more ass than anyone else in the senior class."

"And I like to think it's not just quantity but quality as well."

"Definitely. I may have issues, but fourteen years of therapy has left me with more self-esteem than I know what to do with. I have been taught to like myself so much that I can't settle for less than the best. So you better get into Wash U. Law School. I think I'd have to dump you if you were planning on spending a couple more years in Carbondale for your law degree."

"I'd have to dump myself if it was going to look like that was going to happen. If I'm looking at a third tier law school, it's definitely going to be a third tier law school in a real city and not out in the sticks."

Country road turned into state highway and they went through a handful of small to mid-sized towns before they connected up with I-55 just west of Cape Girardeau. At that point, Tony really hit the gas pedal, pushing the late model Taurus until it was cruising along at about seventy-five along with the rest of the vehicles on the road.

"Rest stop in one mile. Next rest stop's on the other side of St. Louis," Neal read from the highway sign as Tony continued to concentrate on the traffic.

"Probably the best spot to change before we hit town then. I'm all about hitting the ground running and ready to rock once we get there." Because sometimes you just wanted to flaunt it all in public as soon as possible, and in southern Illinois that could be something of a gamble. Most people were live and let live types, but the ones who weren't could get damn violent about it all.

Tony parked the car, and both men grabbed bags from the back seat before heading into the men's room. While the official plan for the weekend was Tony's law school campus tour and his own campus tour at SIU's Edwardsville campus just across the river, they were both definitely looking forward to getting to having some fun while they were in the big city, and the plan was to be ready to go as soon as they hit the boundaries of the St Louis metropolitan area. So Neal moved into a handicapped stall for the room to move and quickly shucked off his usual school clothing of baggy jeans and oversized sweatshirt. Those items were packed into his duffle and replaced with much tighter dark jeans, and a white wife-beater tank top. The combat boots were the one constant. They seemed to fit the image of both school Neal and real world Neal. Tucking his shirt into his pants, he moved himself and his bag to the long counter of sinks and mirrors, checking himself in the mirror to make sure his hair looked decent, and then carefully adding just a tease of mascara to his eyelashes.

"Looking good there," Tony said as he finished changing and walked up behind Neal.

"Not bad yourself," Neal said as he pretended to contemplate a small blackhead on the edge of his nose. Truth be told, Tony went far beyond not bad and somewhere down the pathway of really damn hot- an old black punk band t-shirt that was tight enough you could see every muscle in Tony's torso, dark green combat pants trimmed with suspenders that were pulled off his shoulders and flapped around his legs, and black leather boots that added another inch or two to Tony's already considerable height.

Even as he pretended to half ignore Tony, Neal leaned backward until his ass pressed against Tony's crotch. He briefly rubbed back and forth and was rewarded with a demonstration of just how much give Tony's pants had in the groin area.

"Haven't seen anyone else come in here since we got here, and the handicapped stalls down the other way are like around the corner and seem to have some privacy."

"Tempting. It's really fucking tempting. But then I wonder about what would happen if we got caught, and how a public indecency charge could screw up my chances to be admitted to the bar in a couple of years. Good as it would be, it's just not worth it now."

"Yeah, you're right. You're always right," Neal said as he straightened himself and put the mascara back in his bag.

"Disappoints me too. I mean why did I have to be the guy who's hard-wired to always have to try to do the responsible thing? Sometimes, I just wish I could be the guy who was all damn the consequences because the irresponsible thing would be fun."

"I thought that was what this weekend was for. Only thing to worry about was to not show up hung over for your tour tomorrow."

"Yeah, I guess I shouldn't be annoyed if we don't start until we actually hit town."

They grabbed a quick meal from Burger King just off the interstate, checked into a Motel 6 that was a few exits further north, and once they dumped their bags in the room, they headed back to the car to look for some fun. Neal slid into the passenger side seat, St. Louis street atlas in one hand and a crumpled piece of paper in the other. The paper contained a list of bars and clubs that some of the regulars from Adam and Steve's had thought they might have fun at.

"Any preferences?" Neal asked as he looked over the list of street names in the back of the atlas.

"Closest place would be good. I've gotta say I'm getting sick of driving and ready to do something else."

Neal flipped between pages a few more times, checking club locations against the location of their motel before arriving at the first possible solution.

"Looks like that would be the Electra then. Notes say it's a general dance club that plays a lot of house music out of Chicago, and I'm all for stretching my legs and hearing something new at this point."

"And I'm all for watching you stretch your legs too. And to think that not too long ago, you thought you couldn't dance."

"I still don't think I'm great."

"But you look hot when you're trying, and that's what counts."

They found their way through an area of post-war suburbia, the road atlas actually coming in handy in a few spots where roads seemed to begin and end for no real reason. Tony parked the car in a lot behind a small strip of businesses, then they made their way into the back entrance of the club. Music swarmed around them as they went in to pay their cover charge, the heavy dance beat drawing Neal to movement even as he got his hand stamped. The two men cut down a hallway and into the main part of the club.

And Neal nearly froze up. Everyone else there was the same. Not literally of course, but the male crowd there was all somewhere between just legal and under thirty, all looking like they bought their clothes from the same two stores, and were all going for the same kind of moderately scruffy look like they were preening to find a date without wanting it to seem like they were trying too hard to get one. Fortunately, it was the same kind of look that him and Tony had gone with too. But it still threw him for a loop. Back at Adam and Steve's, he'd never had to worry about just where he'd fit in- men and women, old and young, fem to butch and everywhere in between, even the guy who supposedly had a little fae blood, they were all in it together, even the old guys who kept trying to inflict country music on the rest of the crowd. He'd never really thought about how in a city with a bigger scene that people might start segregating themselves into different kinds of clubs like Electra seemed to be.

"Dance, monkey, dance," Tony said, giving him a light slap on the ass that took him out of his thoughts and back to the world of the dance floor.

"Takes one to know one," he said sticking out his tongue, his voice just barely audible over the music.

They moved across the dance floor together, working as a team though it wasn't the sort of music where you much set it up with a partner. Instead, you moved from place to place, making a little eye contact as you shook your assets. Neal's confidence grew as he started to get a few smiles from the other people on the dance floor, hands and legs brushing against him as they moved to the beat. Oddly from the same mold or no, at least some of the guys here were willing to touch him just like the guys back at the bar were.

They made a few more circuits of the floor, Neal starting to think that he wanted to find some house CDs or tapes while he was in St. Louis in order to add that to Adam and Steve's music rotation. Then just when he was at the point where he was going to pull Tony off the dance floor to go find something to drink, a brown-haired dancer cozied up to Tony, his hands moving across Tony's back.

And then he grabbed the suspenders, drawing them back and around to bind Tony's hands behind him. Neal saw a moment of surprise in Tony's eyes, but before he could step over to brownie, the brown-haired man, and make him take his hands off Tony, Tony smiled, sending Neal the message to let it all play out as it would. As the music played on, the three men began to move to the beat again, brownie guiding Tony from place to place as Neal moved free. Then Tony leaned away from brownie, not enough to pull away from him altogether, though Tony was definitely strong enough to do. Instead it was to pull the suspenders tighter against his wrists, the look on Tony's face making it seemed like he had just stumbled upon something he was finding very very interesting.

And Neal was finding it all very interesting as well. He'd always seen Tony as some sort of constantly moving overpowering force, and there was now something beautiful about seeing that force on the edge barely contained in order to keep it from totally exploding all around him. He caught the eye of brownie, then moved closer to Tony, hips and ass swaying to the heavy beat. Usually that was a cue for Tony to push up against him, but brownie pulled back on Tony, keeping him from touching Neal. He got a look of surprise from Tony's face and then another smile from the other man.

In response, Neal drew his hands in a pattern in the air around Tony's face, his hands tracing a silhouette but not touching the air. His kiss touched only air instead of Tony as well, brownie keeping Neal just out of Tony's reach. They continued the dance in that way, the near touches and close movements drawing Neal to arousal as hard as if he'd had a hand wrapped around his cock. From what he could see of Tony in the light, the other man felt the same way. But they kept going a few minutes beyond that until the song stopped and the DJ started to ramble on about something Neal couldn't bother to care about, not with Tony looking like he did right in front of him.

Brownie let go of the suspenders and moved around to face both Neal and Tony, an offer for something more clearly in his face. Tony gave his head a quick and firm shake no, and brownie smiled as he moved back into the dance floor crowd.

"Out of here?" Neal asked, because he wasn't quite sure what kind of dancing was supposed to top that.

"Yeah," Tony said as the music started to really rev up again.

Holding hands so they could move through the crowd together, they made their way out of the club and back into the parking lot. They got back into the car, but instead of starting the engine, Tony slid one hand along Neal's thigh and groin.

Not here," Neal said firmly. He wasn't going to be the reason why a club or bar got shut down, and getting busted by the cops for having sex in a parking lot could easily make that happen.

"I'm not sure how much longer I can stand it," Tony said.

"Admitted to the bar, remember."

"Fuck, yeah."

"Or in this case, no fuck yeah. At least not yet." Neal said as Tony started the car. On the way back to the motel, Neal moved his own hand to the outside of Tony's thigh, and started to stroke his way inward. Before it had been looking without being allowed to touch; now it was being touched but not being able to do anything about it without putting the car into a streetlight. Power and beautiful strength contained just barely again, and this time it was only him that was causing it, Neal happily thought as he stroked the tip of Tony through the green pants. By the time they got back to the motel, Tony was only just barely able to make sharp little noises and steer the car at the same time.

They both lunged for the motel room after Tony parked the car, Neal glad that the motel was one of those places where the rooms opened right out to the parking lot. He wouldn't have wanted to walk past the motel clerk and down a hallway where he could run into other guests right now. Tony fumbled the key out of his pocket, and the instant that the door closed, the clothes started to come off.

"Hold it there," Neal said once Tony had gotten down to socks and underwear.

"Hold what?"

"Right like you are," he said. He wasn't ready to let what had happened on the dance floor end just yet. He eyed the headboard, then bent down to pull a sweatshirt out of his bag. "Okay, now on your back on the bed."

Tony's eyes flicked from the sweatshirt to the bed, then he flopped onto the bed, his hands already stretching toward the headboard. Obviously he wasn't ready for it to end either. Neal worked the sweatshirt in a knot around headboard and Tony's wrists.

"Am I cutting off the circulation?"

"Nope. Fingers all moving and non-tingly."

"And other things tingling when they should, I hope."

The response was an amused look from Tony as he shifted around on the bed to make himself comfortable, just coincidentally showing off the bulge in his briefs in a more flattering light. At that moment, Neal briefly paused, uncertain of the course ahead. It was like he was an indoor cat that had caught a mouse for the very first time. He realized he had an interesting opportunity tied prone to the bed, but he wasn't quite sure what he was supposed to do with it.

Always try to act with confidence, even if you had to bluff your way through it to start. It was something he started working on way back when in order to reduce getting picked on. Sometimes it worked better than other times, but better to do something than to look like you didn't know anything. With a smile on his face, he finished stripping himself bare as Tony watched him. Then he stroked himself, running the fingers of one hand down his cock as he fished a strip of condoms out of his bag with the other hand. He tore the first one open, dropping the rest of them onto the other side of the bed.

"I think I'm going to need some help with this," he said as he started to unroll the condom on his cock until it was just past the tip.

"I'll help," Tony said. Neal saw him swallow to force more saliva into his mouth.

"Good," he said as he straddled the other man's chest, putting the edge of his cock against Tony's lips. As encumbered as he was, Tony's mouth was still free to wonderfully work the latex over his shaft, tongue and teeth padded by lips unrolling it as Neal felt a new rush of pleasure. He had to lean further toward the headboard in order for Tony to finish the job, his hands coming to rest near Tony's. He let his fingers trace the line the sweatshirt made along Tony's wrists and was rewarded by a grunt, and a tongue doing other work since it had secured the condom properly in place. He let Tony work at him for a little while longer, trying to figure out if he waned it to end this way or if there were other things to try, and then he made his decision.

"Did you bring any lube?"

He was rewarded with another grunt, at which point he realized he had no idea of what it meant. Were you supposed to set up some sort of code for this thing beforehand? Call it one grunt for yes, and two grunts for no?

Reluctantly, he slid backward, pulling his cock out of Tony's mouth and leaving a trail of pussy juices along Tony's chest.

"Side pocket of my backpack."

"Boy scout."

"Stopped just before Eagle Scout, and what can I say? It rubbed off."

Neal rolled off the bed and quickly located the small tube. They didn't do anal sex all that much. Usually it seemed like it took too much work to get it off when there were so many other options that were quicker and easier. But in this case, seeing Tony as aroused as he was and unable to do anything about it, it just made Neal want to draw it all out more. He found the condoms, pulled Tony's briefs off, and quickly pulled one over Tony's cock with all the outward emotion of a nurse putting in a catheter. He wasn't returning that particular favor, and there was nothing Tony could do about it. Funny how that casualness had suddenly seemed to make them both even harder, Neal for having that kind of control over the other man, and Tony enjoying the vulnerability. He cupped his hand around Tony's balls, teasing both scrotum and the end of his shaft, then leaned down to give him a nip on the bare skin of his groin. Tony didn't shave all the way down there, but he did have to trim pretty far back because he wore a speedo so often, and Neal had learned that the skin along that line was extra sensitive. There were more nips and a few longer licks along both the groin line and Tony's cock that left the other man mumbling 'fuck' softly over and over.

"I'm getting there. I'm just on my own schedule and not yours here."

"Just remember I've got a campus tour at eight tomorrow morning. Feels like you're going to damn take until then right now."

"Maybe, maybe not," he said, smiling as he sat back up. He took another one of the condoms and slid it over a couple of his fingers, covering the outside of it with the lube. Then he went back between Tony's legs and rested his fingers along Tony's asshole and perineum, the cool lube first making Tony try to twitch away and then press up against Neal's hand. But not yet. Instead Neal took his other hand, rubbing it along the underside of Tony's cock. Distract him ,tease him until Tony didn't know what to expect yet, and then, just when Tony seemed to think it was going to be nothing more than a hand job, that was when Neal began to work his fingers into Tony's ass.

Before long, he had to pull his hand away from Tony's cock. He had the sense that Tony was just about to come and he wasn't ready for that to happen yet. He was having too much fun enjoying watching Tony's face. The way he was built meant he didn't get to do that much in the middle of sex. His cock sat in front of his vagina, his bladder somewhere behind it. He'd been told by a long go doctor that if he ever got pregnant, he needed to deliver by c-section or else he'd tear the hell out of his urinary tract. In the here and now, it meant that his cock rode high enough that it tended to get in the way with a lot of face to face sex stuff.

But not this time. Not when he had Tony all angled and opened out in front of him and totally vulnerable to whatever else Neal wanted to do with him. He teased Tony open further, a little bit concerned about just how much longer Tony could last. Then he discarded the condom on his hand, took the lube and spread it on his cock, pulled Tony's hips up into the air, and then pushed his way into the other man.

Tony went on about his third really deep and good stroke, Neal feeling him clinch even tighter around him as he heard his happy moans. The noise made him push deep again, thrusting as deeply as he could. Tony went a little bit limp, which made Neal even more turned on. When Tony was done with sex, what had turned him on seconds before just wasn't interesting to him anymore. It was that rush of power again, knowing that Tony wasn't quite comfortable with what he was doing but that he couldn't quite protest at the moment. For all that part of Neal wanted to rush toward an orgasm of his own, he slowed it down just a little bit to enjoy that rush of power mixed with sex, to know that the other man was entirely responding to his own needs and none of his own for that moment.

Then finally he just couldn't hold it back anymore, and he came hard inside Tony, his own cries loud enough that someone five rooms over could probably hear them. Spent, slid out of Tony and untied the other man's hands from the headboard. Having to catch his breath, he flopped on the bed next to the other man. They didn't cuddle afterwards; it was neither of their things. But they did end up for a few seconds of comfort where his hand ended up across Tony's perfect stomach and Tony's ended up rubbing against his leg.

Shortly after that, they ended up in the shower together, something that Neal always quietly enjoyed a great deal. They usually didn't have the energy for another round of sex at that point, but there was something reassuring about the quiet touches and laughter and making fake mohawks with shampoo that made him feel like, through Tony, he was connected to the human race, something that he hadn't felt very often when he was growing up.

"Shampoo making a run for your eyes," Tony said as he reached over to wipe just above Neal's eyebrows.

"Are you okay there?" he asked as he caught sight of Tony's wrist. "Shit, I think there's going to be a mark there still in the morning."

"Just a little bit of a rub. My long sleeve dress shirt should cover it up if it has to. But I guess if we do something like that again, we probably need better tools for it."

"And do we want to do something like that again?" He found himself going please, please, let it be yes, yes.

"Don't think I could handle it every time. It was just too intense. But if you're interested?"

"Very much so. It was like, I'm not sure how to explain it, but it felt great, and I'm already wondering what we can do to make it better next time."

"Good thing we're young and fit and our hearts can stand it," Tony said.

Neal leaned his head back to rinse out his hair, then grabbed Tony in a hug as the spray came down around them. At that moment, he wasn't sure he wanted to talk about it anymore because it might somehow break the magic of the moment, but the hug that was generously returned, that was good stuff that kept it all going just a little longer.


End file.
